LibreOffice vs. OpenOffice.org

I am sure a lot of you are wondering if LibreOffice is so similar to OpenOffice.org, which one should I use? Well they are very similar but there are some differences worth pointing out. First, Libre supports more languages than OpenOffice.org, which can be a boon for those of us that are multi-cultured and multi-lingual. Secondly, LibreOffice does a better job than OpenOffice.org at handling Microsoft Works, Lotus Word Pro, and WordPerfect documents. One of the biggest differences, that may be important more to companies than to individuals, is that OpenOffice.org offers a premium version that will get them some pro-level support if they have questions or problems. LibreOffice users will have to rely on the community.

LibreOffice also offers some robust support for SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) within the Writer, Impress, and Draw modules. SVG can be exported from many popular drawing applications, like Adobe Illustrator, Microsoft Visio, and some CAD programs. LibreOffice also has a standalone help file installer, which can be a boon if you donít think youíre going to need the help files and want to save some tiny bit of space on your hard drive, but doesnít really matter otherwise. I did note that OpenOffice.org comes with Java bundled into the .msi installer, but it wasnít the latest version so I had to go update it manually anyway.

All in all, I would say that unless you are running a big company and need the premium support levels of OpenOffice.org, LibreOffice is probably the better bet. However, the community support for LibreOffice is not to be overlooked. I found answers to pretty much every question I had, with a minimum of searching.

Bottom line: I would recommend this office suite to anyone, no matter their experience level or needs. LibreOffice has you covered, and doesnít have a price tag. In my book itís a winner.

It is compatible with other major office suites, including Microsoft Office, and available on a variety of platforms. Its developers' goal is to produce a vendor-independent office suite with ODF support and without any copyright assignment requirements. The name is a hybrid word with the first part Libre, which means free (as in freedom) in French and Spanish, and the English word Office.
LibreOffice 3.3 has been downloaded over 1.3 million times.[4] It is the default office suite in many different Linux distributions, such as Fedora, Linux Mint, openSUSE and Ubuntu"

History

Initial release

On 28 September 2010, several members of the OpenOffice.org project formed a new group called "The Document Foundation". The Document Foundation created LibreOffice from their former project, over concerns that Oracle Corporation would either discontinue OpenOffice.org, or place restrictions on it as an open-source project, as it had on OpenSolaris.
It was originally hoped that the LibreOffice name would be provisional, as Oracle was invited to become a member of The Document Foundation. Oracle rejected offers to donate the OpenOffice.org brand to the project,[15] and demanded that all members of the OpenOffice.org Community Council involved with The Document Foundation step down from the OOo Community Council, citing a conflict of interest.[16]
The Go-oo project was discontinued in favour of LibreOffice.[17] Improvements made by the project are being merged into LibreOffice. Enhancements made in other forks are also expected to be incorporated into LibreOffice.[18][19] Also underway is the reduction of Java dependency, with the goal of minimizing security issues and improving application stability.[20]
As a result of the fork of OpenOffice.org into LibreOffice, and the resulting loss of developers, Oracle announced in April 2011 that it was terminating the commercial development of OpenOffice.org.[21] In June 2011, Oracle has announced[22] it will contribute OpenOffice.org code and trademark to the Apache Software Foundation, which decided to accept the offer and start an incubation process within the foundation.